October 16, 2006

A Whopper a Day

As I have said to several folks in e-mail this week last, we must expect that every day, every media source that is elite (or wishes it were) will print yet another story whose only purpose is to demoralize Republicans.

Expect it. Gird your loins. Prepare like a Boy Sprout. Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics appears to have caught Adam Nagourney of the New York (Democratic) Times in just such a whopper. It all starts out believably enough:

Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and [they] are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.

The decision to effectively write off Mr. DeWine’s seat, after a series of internal Republican polls showed him falling behind his Democratic challenger, is part of a fluid series of choices by top leaders in both parties as they set the strategic framework of the campaign’s final three weeks, signaling, by where they are spending television money and other resources, the Senate and House races where they believe they have the best chances of success.

Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia — while trying to hold on to the House by pouring money into districts where Republicans have a strong historical or registration advantage, party officials said Sunday. Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the few Democrats who appear endangered.

But Cost, who actually knows a thing or two about campaigns, was not fooled. He fumfahs around some, pretending to take this pearl seriously and puzzling at the contradictions:

Giving up on a race that is still probably winnable - even if the chance of victory is now at 33%, for instance - is something that a party does when it is suffering from scarce resources. And that is not one of the many GOP problems this year.

And of course, this does not take into account the fact that The Washington Post on Friday reported that the GOP was making Ohio part of its Waterloo-type stand....

Nor, for that matter, does it take into account the story last week from David Espo indicating that the NRC was involving itself in the Ohio Senate race, stepping on the toes of the NRSC in the process.

Then the Jay-bird drops the hammer:

I think there is something more to the story -- and whatever that "more" is, it exists in the undetailed details implicit to this paragraph:

Mr. DeWine has proved to be a successful fund-raiser on his own, and, with $4.5 million on hand, already enjoys a large financial advantage over his Democratic opponent, Representative Sherrod Brown; he is not dependent on financial support to keep campaigning. The Republican National Committee and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee have already spent $4.6 million on his race; party officials said they concluded that there were now simply more opportune races to focus on.

Maybe, then, the Times is drawing the wrong inference from their sources. Maybe they are interpreting Republican accounting procedures (i.e. the party being satisfied with the overall amount spent between the RNC, the NRSC and DeWine) as news of DeWine's demise. This paragraph certainly reads differently from the opener, does it not? This one reads as though DeWine is in fairly good financial shape, and the GOP is moving on to less well-heeled candidates. That certainly makes more sense.

Sorry to quote so lavishly from Jay's post, which is quite wondrous to behold. But yesterday, Jay linked to a fast and furious denial by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN, 92%). Nothing dissembling at all about it, not like Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Caesar's Palace, 100%) non-denial denial of wrongdoing in the Great Nevada Land Snatch. No, ma'am; Frist goes right for the juggler.

(My many layers of editors insist that this should be "goes right for the jugular," but I say they suffer a paucity of imagination. Why can't Frist for a juggler if he wants? Who's going to stop him? You?)

The truth is that liberal Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media are anxious about positive polling for Senator DeWine and about the proven success of our voter mobilization efforts … and they are desperately hoping that Republicans concede Mike DeWine’s seat without putting up a fight.

That, old chums, is the sound of gloves being snapped off. Though why Bill Frist should be wandering around the office in gloves is anybody's guess; and let's hope they're not elbow-high opera gloves. (Perhaps he took them from the juggler as a prize or token.)

Get ready for it; it will not come creeping like some juggler in the night; at this point, the elite media will charge like a panicky rhino, crashing into furniture left and right and flipping the tea things high into the air. We will see story after story, sledge hammer after sledge hammer: Republicans are Communists! Republicans are child molesters! They're in league with bin Laden! They're puppets of the Jews!

But with every clumsy overhead blow, just smile -- and tell your grumpy Republican buddies to stop sitting out the election in a snit and stop blubbering that the end is near, but instead to rise up, go forth, and cast their votes against hysteria, fabrication, and poltroonery.

As Friend Lee predicted today, on November 8th, one of two things will happen:

The jubilant Democrats will be dancing in the streets, screaming like little girls, and juggling cigar boxes in glee at having finally captured the House of Representatives in order to impeach the president;

Or the Democrats will foam at the mouth, fall into a frenzy, bang their heads against the floor, frighten the horses, and begin chewing the carpet like starving goats working their way through the prize begonias. They might even spontaneously combust.

Either one would be intriguing, in a "horrified fascination" sort of way; but on the whole, I think we'd all rather watch number 2.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 16, 2006, at the time of 11:55 PM

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Tracked on October 17, 2006 3:28 PM

Comments

The thing that Conservatives must keep in mind is that it took us nearly four decades to unseat the looney left. Any concession, in the form of giving up majority control short term or long term, is unacceptable, regardless of whether the GOP Congress "deserves" to lose control or not.

As Dafydd and Rush keep reminding us, WE don't deserve to lose what we've fought so hard to gain! Not now, not ever.

It is far far better to maintain control of Congress while unseating any individual gutless GOP wonders one by one who have betrayed and/or undermined Conservative values, than to give up control of the ship and have to fight the storm surges to wrest back control.

This isn't about whether the GOP "deserves" anything at all, whether perceived rewards or inferred punishments. It's about We the People, controlling, preserving, restoring and maintaining the great nation that our Founding Fathers so insightfully prepared the foundation to create and support.

If the Dems and others don't like the framework by which our country operates, they can darn well emigrate somewhere where their values are shared and fostered. They are not the majority here in the USA, and if truth be told, they never were. They were simply the most vocal and obnoxious in activism and grasping what they wanted, the rest of the country be damned.

Well, my invitation to them now is: Go live in France, you'd fit right in!

The above hissed in response by: CayuteKitt at October 17, 2006 3:07 AM

I must say the last several posts have achieved a new apogee of loquacious goodness. Bravo.

Another thing to expect - the bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan will step up their attacks to an insane, almost feverish degree. They too sense that victory is a possibility and wish to unleash their own October surprise. The media will lavish attention on all the deficiencies of Iraq and Afghanistan. Also on North Korea and Iran, just for grins.

Perhaps the increase in American casualties can be called the "Democratic October Casualty Bump".

I vote for insane frenzy as well. Oddly immigration from the U.S. to other countries will not increase one iota.

The above hissed in response by: Big D at October 17, 2006 9:28 AM

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